I Swear I Lived
by ninemelodies
Summary: Nothing could ever stop him or tie him down. Nothing but the stars.


Getting to this point hadn't been easy. By the end of it all, he had more scrapes, cuts, and bruises than the rest of them, and it all started with a hill.

Demyx dug his heel into the ground and wrapped the blanket tighter around his fists. It was the middle of summer, when the feeling of freedom made teenagers lightheaded but the grounding darkness of school lurked on the horizon. He took off, gaining speed each time his foot made contact with the warm summer asphalt. With one final push, he brought his foot down on the board, closed his eyes, and he was flying. Through the sky he sailed, the sun coloring the inside of his eyelids with oranges and reds, and the blanket trailing out behind him. Freedom was a drug, and he had decided he was going to get every drop of it he could. He opened his eyes again when he neared the bottom of the hill, breaking the illusion of flight. From the top of the hill, Axel and Roxas clapped, grinning as they looked down at their friend. This, he decided, this was how he was going to live life.

That night, after returning home to yet another screaming match between his parents, he decided it was time to leave. When the yelling stopped and the house was quiet, he gathered up his things, wrote a goodbye letter to his friends, and set out into the world. No longer was he going to live under those conditions, he was going to be free, he was going to travel. Demyx didn't know how it would work, and honestly, he didn't care. There would no longer be the fear that crawled underneath his skin, the creeping paranoia that, when they finally remembered he was there, hiding in his room, he was going to be the next target of his parents anger. With his skateboard and guitar in tow, Demyx set off on an adventure around the country.

He didn't care about grades, and the thought hadn't set in yet that his friends would miss him. He was only thinking about that fact that he knew his parents wouldn't even notice he was gone.

A month after his disappearance, someone made an attempt to try and locate him, but he knew from the number on the bottom of the flyer that it wasn't his parents. Something in him twinged, and a tear made its way down his face. He knew, but somewhere inside, he still wished that maybe they would care enough. Shortly after, the case drifted down into the dregs of the missing childrens database. No one cared enough to try and find him.

Two years later and that fact still held true. By this time he had traveled all across the country. A year ago he'd met a girl, and for months, believed that she was the one he was going to spend the rest of his life with. When it turned out he was wrong, he packed up again and kept moving. Now he was somewhere in the south, and he spent his free time when he wasn't walking playing his well loved guitar on street corners for spare change and free food. Aquamarine eyes flashed with knowledge and suffering and joy beyond their years, but no one ever asked for the raggedy musicians story, and he never told. So he just continued strumming his song, and thanking people for the time of day they gave him.

A few years after that he found himself in front of his childhood home, standing on the same pavement had 8 years ago. The family in his old house seemed happy, and he was happy for them, but still, sadness twinged at the edges of his heart. He set his skateboard down, and with only the street lights to illuminate his path, began to push himself down the same hill from that summer day so many ages ago. He didn't regret leaving, he didn't regret missing out on all the things that had had happened since he'd left, but he did miss this hill. Closing his eyes, he remembered the flying sensation that had made him decide to leave. Only this time when he opened his eyes, Roxas and Axel weren't at the top of the hill to greet him, but a car was at the bottom. He slammed into it, or maybe, it slammed into him. In the last moments of awareness, he marveled at the stars before his eyes slipped closed.

When he woke up, he was in a field. His clothes were cleaner than they'd ever been, and in the distance, he could see a sunset. Demyx began walking towards it, something drawing him toward the smudge of red and yellow he could see on the horizon. The closer he got, the more he realized that it wasn't a sunset he was seeing, but two brightly colored heads of hair. He sat down next to Axel and Roxas, unsure why they were here or even where here was. Something in him realized that they were dead and so was he, but it was all okay.

They looked at him, and Axel asked him one question. "Do you regret it?"

Demyx sat still for a minute, staring out towards the real sunset. Satisfied with the answer he had come up with, he looked back at Axel. "No," he said, shaking his head. "I swear, I lived."

Axel and Roxas smiled, pleased with his answer. "We missed you."

Demyx smiled, "I know, I've been gone a long time huh? Well!" he yelled, laying back into the soft grass. "We have eternity now don't we?"


End file.
